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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26233309">The Saviour with a Heart of Steel</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/mona_liar/pseuds/mihawque'>mihawque (mona_liar)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Heavy is the Head which bears all Knowledge [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>One Piece</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Analysis, Character Study, Gen, POV First Person, Science, Worldbuilding</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 11:34:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,651</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26233309</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/mona_liar/pseuds/mihawque</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>I had grown close enough to the research facility and to my colleagues to finally call it somewhat of a home. I had not expected for Dr. Vegapunk to hand me a box and tell me to hide it. <br/>I'm happy to know he is not as untouched by outside events as he likes to make us believe. I'm happy he doesn't feel so alone anymore.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Heavy is the Head which bears all Knowledge [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1854583</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Saviour with a Heart of Steel</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello and thank you for clicking on this fic!<br/>This is the second fic of a series of One-Shots about Dr. Vegapunk told from the perspective of an unnamed new researcher at the research facility in the New World under Vegapunk's supervision, an original character I created to have an outside perspective on Vegapunk and how people in the One Piece world might perceive him. <br/>You do not need to read any other of the installments of the series to understand the different one shots, but it might be interesting. They are all in chronological order.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>We all knew something terrible had happened when Dr. Vegapunk walked into the kitchen <em>humming a song</em>. It’s not impossible for him to follow our regular sleep cycle and drink coffee at 8 in morning instead of the middle of the night. It still happens from time to time and back then, things were still relatively quiet, at least compared to now. After the Paramount War, it seemed all the involved factions had retreated to lick their wounds, we were left in peace to develop new machinery and weapons in the relative quiet that was the calm before the storm and Dr. Vegapunk only worked through three nights per week instead of the now more usual five. It was odd to see him during breakfast, but not any more than everything else I had observed about the Doctor in my short time working at the research facility. What was much more alarming, however, was his chipper demeanour and the overall <em>joy</em> he was radiating. My seniors, who had been chatting in front of the coffee machine, were quick to get out of his way.</p>
<p>This was the definitive sign that something was truly wrong and not a false impression on my part due to my lack of experience with Dr. Vegapunk’s daily behaviour and habits.</p>
<p>“What the hell happened?”, asked Rodney, my neighbour and usual breakfast buddy. He spoke in hushed tones and I noticed he made a great effort not to look in Dr. Vegapunk’s direction. “Is there anything we forgot about? Is today his birthday or something?”</p>
<p>Vivianne and I shared looks. I did not even know how old the Doctor was, let alone his birthday. I still don’t, for that matter.</p>
<p>“Maybe a Marine Officer or an Agent got injured because they mishandled one of our prototypes?” As soon as the words had left Vivianne’s mouth, we already knew she did not consider this a realistic possibility. An incident like this could not have been responsible for the Doctor’s terrifying aloofness and whoever used one of our inventions, even a prototype, knew to treat them with the respect and fear they deserved.</p>
<p>On his way to the door, Dr. Vegapunk walked right by our table. We all ducked our head and no one said a word. As he passed by, I recognized the melody he was humming. It was a children’s rhyme.  My first science teacher in Mary Geoise had used it to help us remember the elements of the periodic table. She had said it was one of the first things the children on her home island in Paradise learned when they were introduced to more complex elements of chemistry. This was the first clue I received of the Doctor’s past, one of what would turn into a string of history, leading into the dark and giving answers to questions I had back then not asked myself while raising new ones I will likely stay forever ignorant about.</p>
<p>The melody was stuck in my head for the rest of the day.</p>
<p>Dr. Vegapunk’s good mood did not disappear for some time. Whenever I saw him or had to speak to him, he was happy and chipper, almost normal, which of coursed meant something had happened. If it was bad or disastrous, I could not say. He was not the type of person to experience empathetic happiness for events on the other side of the world and nothing directly related to his sudden increase in joy had taken place on our island, I was sure of that.</p>
<p>It was only three months later,  that everything went to hell.</p>
<p>I was in the middle of carrying a box full of petri-dishes and various other basic research supplies we had ordered, as these types of things always tend to have longer transportation times than anything else — I don’t know why, but that’s how things are when you work for Dr. Vegapunk — when the Doctor, who was racing through the hallways, spotted and made his way towards me. I was completely alone, no one else in sight and I will  admit I was slightly scared. I think no matter how long you work with him, you’ll never get over all the horrific stories and myths people tell about him, especially because half of them turn out to be true in one form or another. His vice-like grip around my biceps as he dragged me along did nothing to ease my fear. In shock, I nearly dropped the box, marked <strong>FRAGILE</strong> in bright red ink on all sides, and barely managed to keep up as he took us to his office.</p>
<p>“Wait here. Do not move,” he said and went inside. Through the doorway, I could see how he walked through another door on the backwall of the room, behind which I thought to see a spiral staircase winding up, but the sight was immediately closed off to me when the door fell shut.</p>
<p>I decided to move and put the box down. It was fragile and full of glass but these were no criteria which excluded it from being heavy and my arms were beginning to hurt.</p>
<p>15 minutes later — I timed it on my watch because I had decided that after half an hour of mindless waiting, I would leave — Dr. Vegapunk appeared from the mysterious door with a box in his hands. It was nothing like the one made of cardboard he had made me carry through half the building for naught, but one of the clean, white ones researchers like me are administered when we first move in. They are for storage — clothes, decorations, anything one might need to get away for an indeterminate amount of time, look unsuspicious and, most importantly for the Doctor, I think, they all look the same. There have been numerous occasions where they accidentally changed owners because someone did not pay attention to the box they took from storage. Some of these occasions and the information they brought to light have been more memorable than others, for general entertainment and others for individual embarrassment.</p>
<p>The Doctor pressed the box into my hand with more force than I had expected from anyone with a frail appearance such as his.</p>
<p>“Here. Take this to your room an put it somewhere you can forget about it. Bring me one of these that is empty. Oh, and <em>I categorically forbid you from looking inside</em>.”</p>
<p>I gulped and nodded, turning on my heels and walking to my small apartment. When I looked back, he was still staring at me, following my retreat with the outmost concentration. My cardboard box lay abandoned at his feet. I did not go back to get it when I brought the Doctor the empty storage box he had requested. Instead, it mysteriously turned up in front of my teams laboratory door the very same evening, as if moved by a ghost.</p>
<p>The next morning, there was furious whisper when I entered the canteen.</p>
<p>“Did you hear? The Fleet Admiral is coming today!”, said Yshal. This caught my attention, because even if we are the most important research facility of the World Government and the Marines, we rarely get orders from actually commanding officers through any other means than the mail or a secured transponder snail. I have had to tell them about the impossibility of their request more than once because they refuse to properly think about what they want. We are scientists, not magicians.</p>
<p>“Who, Senghok? I thought he retired?”</p>
<p>“No, the new one, Sakazuki. You know, Admiral Akainu. He only started the position last week, how can you not know that? I’m pretty sure this is his first action as new Fleet Commander. And he’s coming to see us!” His eyes were wide and he was speaking faster than usual, spurred on by his excitement.</p>
<p>“Well, as long as he stays Human…”, murmured Johaan, letting the sentence trail off without finishing it.</p>
<p>“Oh come on! You of all people should know better than to be scarred of Logia-Users! You know exactly that their powers don’t-“</p>
<p>I did not listen to what else Yshal had to say about the fascinating aspect of Devil Fruits-powers. Instead, my thoughts wandered to the white box Dr. Vegapunk had given me. I had exchanged it with one in the bottom of my shelf I had yet to use and promptly forgotten about it. The temporal proximity of these two very unusual events, however, piqued my curiosity.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>That night, when everything had grown quiet, I pulled the box from its place on the shelf. It was a frightening moment when I opened it. I was actively disobeying a direct order given to me by Doctor Vegapunk. But the abrupt chain of events preceding the arrival of Fleet Admiral Sakazuki did not let me rest, and I needed to know. It this not my calling? To seek knowledge where I expected to find it in the goal to better my understanding of the world we are living in?</p>
<p>Back then, the research lab was my entire world and Doctor Vegapunk its most important part. I thought I had no other choice but to dig for answers.</p>
<p>I had expected to possibly find many different things in the box. From plans of the Ancient Weapons kept secret from the Marines to stacks of letters to his family the World Government was not allowed to know of, nothing would have surprised me. Instead, I was disappointed by the simplicity of my discovery.</p>
<p>In this bland, unsuspicious box was one Notebook and a stack of rolled up papers, neatly tied together and lined up next to each other. There were 13 of them in total. Carefully, I spread them out. With one exception, they all looked fairly recent, the heavyweight, familiar paper regularly delivered with the newspapers when a new batch of Bounty Posters was released. Indeed, they were Bounty Posters and none too random at that. With the execution of Portgas D. Ace barely half a year in the past, the dazzling energy of Monkey D. Luffy was still fresh on many people’s minds, including my own. I had used my last weeks in Mary Geoise reading up on the crews exploits, everything I could have learned about them. Dr. Vegapunk had collected their Bounties and managed to get his hands on all of them. The oldest was clearly the first one  of Nico Robin, 20 years old and already fraying at the edges, a testament to the ruthlessness necessary and condoned for the hunt of criminals. 7 other crew members were depicted, most only once while Monkey D. Luffy and his first mate had enlarged their heights of infamy several times in the short span since they had taken to sea. It seemed Dr. Vegapunk was not immune to the fascination for the lanky teenager many of us were enraptured by.</p>
<p>This hint of humanity, of similarity between the Genius and us normal humans caused me to dig further. The notebook from the box had nothing special in appearance. Two fingers wide, the paper was bound in sturdy leather. I opened it and tried to decipher the scribble Dr. Vegapunk calls his handwriting and which I had grown to recognize immediately, even if I still had — still have — great difficulties actually understanding it. He had made crude and rudimentary drawings of a stick or maybe a staff with a lot of questions next to it, questions I could only guess at thanks to interrogation marks indicating their purpose.</p>
<p>A piece of paper slipped out from between the pages and slowly sailed to the ground. It was a newspaper article from the <em>World Economy Newspaper</em> carefully and cleanly folded twice. Even from the outside, I could see it was one of the papers reporting about the quick chain of events unleashed by the Paramount War, from the Death of both Portgas D. Ace and Whitebeard, the resulting battle around the deceased Emperor’s territories and Monkey D. Luffy’s second visit to Marineford to ring in the beginning of a new Era. I could see his arm, depicted in grainy sepia, covered in a mysterious tattoo, as well as the rim of his namesake strawhat which he was clutching to his chest. The photography, with its rest hidden by the folds of the paper, had become infamous nearly instantly and I could visualise it from memory. But it was on the outside, so whatever was important about this newspaper and carried to Vegapunk’s interest about the Strawhat-Pirates must have been on the other side.</p>
<p>I will not deny that I was hurried to discover what potential story, deemed second class by the redaction under Morgans supervision, had captivated the Doctor and been classified as important enough to warrant secure protection from the fleet admiral — what other reason could he have had to entrust me with a box in his possession with such hurry?</p>
<p>The back of the newspaper page, or rather the inside when I unfolded it, had originally carried an explanatory article about the possible structure changes of the Marines after their less than stellar defeat. All I could read of the headline was <strong>Two and a half rising-stars asp </strong>before it had been cut off rather abruptly with what I presume must have been a pair of scissors. Instead, my attention was drawn to a smaller notice on the left of the page. It had been encircled in graphite pen, already slightly faded and had no picture to illustrate its content. Had I read the original and intact newspapers, I would have probably skipped it, or missed it altogether.</p>
<p>I skimmed it quickly, to gather the necessary information. Apparently a small island in Paradise — Karakuri — had suffered major damage in an explosion of yet unidentified cause. I knew I had heard of Karakuri before and only discovered later that it was the home island of Dr. Vegapunk, which explains his heightened interest in the place and all the events taking place there, especially any of such magnitude. He had written down information about it in his notebook. There were messy drawings, what seemed to be a map and wild scribbles, as I knew was the Doctors nature when he had some sort of flash of genius and wanted to write everything down as quickly as possible. Again, I could not read anything he had written, except for one thing; In bold capitals, at the bottom of the page, he had written the words:</p>
<p>
  <strong>FRANKY</strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>
    <span class="u">TRUE</span>
  </strong>
  <strong> CYBORG?</strong>
</p>
<p>The rest of the notebook was empty.</p>
<p>Today, we all know about Cyborg Franky, of course. But back then, I felt as if I had stumbled upon a secret that was mine and and Dr. Vegapunk’s alone, and it made me feel special. I didn’t know what exactly tied Franky and the Strawhats to the Doctor, I did not know what had happened on Karakuri and how Dr. Vegapunk found himself working for the Marines. There are so many things we will likely all stay in the dark about until we die, but I felt as if I had made a unique discovery.</p>
<p>In the entire research facility, as long as I had known him, Dr. Vegapunk had been completely alone, a genius among mediocrities, damned to race with lightspeed through space while the rest of us mere humans struggled to keep up to enjoy the brightness he left in his wake.</p>
<p>But somewhere out there on the wild and open seas existed someone, a pirate no less, who had given Dr. Vegapunk the hope that someone else was capable of understanding him.</p>
<p>A pirate like Cyborg Franky had accomplished something I had always deemed impossible. I was — still am — forever grateful for this. From this moment on, I knew Dr. Vegapunk was not alone anymore, and soon, even if I did not know when, someone else might be able to join them.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I hope you liked this fic!<br/>If you did, please leave a kudo and/or a comment! After all, these are the nourishment we authors survive on :) You can also find me on Tumblr @<a href="https://mihawque.tumblr.com/">Mihawque</a> where you can find a lot of my rambling thoughts about One Piece and even the occasional frustrated update on how my writing is doing if that is something that interests you. <br/>Have a lovely day/evening/night!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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